I have no idea how to create pages but I'll figure it out eventually godammit

Thursday, May 30, 2013

Joy of a Complete Set - 1980 Burger King Star Wars

Archives is live and here are all the fucks I give.

The vintage card show is back in town next week and I just got a pile of cards in a traveling box and in a card draft and honestly new cards don't appeal to me at all unless they are 2012 packs deeply discounted so I can buy 'em all up cheap and feel like I'm sticking it to the MAN when in actuality I could have put that money to much better use just completing sets online. What, what is this post about again? Oh yeah! I completed a set! A vintage set! Ok I bought a vintage set at the flea market. But it's vintage! And STAR WARS!!! No, not Topps Star Wars, I can't even find singles of that anymore because of all you damn nerds hoarding it, it's BURGER KING STAR WARS.

Don't look at me like that, Burger King Cards are cool. Some random BK cards from 1978 that have been lost to history were my first cards ever probably. I can't say for sure, but I'm almost certain that I got some '78 Burger King Tigers cards while on a family vacation when I was 6. It may or may not have actually happened but if I ever become hella famous enough to write an autobiography that's going in the book. It's in my headcanon at least. What? I can be a fan of myself if I want. Wait, what was this post about again? This is why I don't write posts while I'm drunk off my ass. (also why I haven't posted much lately but I digress) Dammit, I forgot what the post was about again. Oh yeah, CARDS! Star Wars cards. From when the movies were actually in the theater. No, the first time. Without 3D or extra added bullshit CGI monsters wandering about in the background for no reason. Wait, did they do the original Star Wars in 3D yet? No, that was The Phantom Menace that was in 3D. And nothing else because no one went to see The Phantom Menace in 3D in the theaters because The Phantom Menace in 2D sucked rancid monkey balls and an extra dimension could only possibly add to the suck. DAMMIT FOCUS. STAY ON TARGET. (Target has the new Archives live already, but not in every store you gotta look around and go to three or four stores). Wait, ARGH

When you think of Burger King Star Wars (if you're middle aged like me at least, you young 'uns missed out) you think of STAR WARS GLASSES which were the coolest damn things ever. You could only get 'em for like a month and this was before the interwebs with over 9000 Star Wars fan sites giving you to the minute updates on all the new merchandise coming out with up-to-the-minute alerts on Facebook and Twitter and Pinterest and a half a dozen websites I'm not cool enough to know about yet and if you didn't eat at Burger King every week or didn't see the commercial you missed out on these glasses FOREVER unless you stumbled upon them at a flea market or garage sale after the fact. I have no Star Wars glasses now, but I had them at one time and I remember them as fondly as I do the Snoopy cookie jar that I scarfed cookies out of when I was a lad but no more because it has been lost in time along with the glasses that my mom's ex probably took in the divorce along with the complete set of RC Cola baseball cans and my little league championship trophy that year I was with the Astros along with all the big kids that actually new how to play. Well glasses weren't the only thing with a Star Wars license that Burger King used to hawk flame broiled goodness. They also put out a card set. THIS CARD SET. THIS IS CRASS MARKETING HISTORY RIGHT HERE SO PAY ATTENTION.

After Star Wars came along and kicked Hollywood right square in the junk Lucas made a second movie which turned out to be the first Star Wars film I saw in the theater so it's the best Star Wars Movie now and forever screw the prequels and whatever crapola JJ Abrams comes up with EMPIRE IS BEST AND IRVING KIRSHNER IS THE GOD OF ALL MOVIE DIRECTORS BECAUSE NOSTALGIA. Thankfully the movie I imprinted on as a young whippersnapper actually turned out to be the good one and to help promote the film as well as sell burgers in a weird symbiotic promotion of synergy Burger King came up with a contest WHERE EVERYONE WINS. Yes, you too can be a winner if you buy a hamburger at the fast food featuring royalty instead of jesters. So here's how YOU can be a winner (if you are under 12 and find a time machine and go back to 1980 and buy a hamburger (no purchase necessary(restrictions apply)))

First go to 1980 and get hungry. Then go right past those damnable arches and walk into Burger King. There you can get a scratch card where every card is a winner. This is not like your normal scratch card games where if you choose the wrong circle to scratch off you're a big fat loooooooser, but if you mess up the first time (or two) you can just keep scratching until you're a winner. Among the prizes available were a flying disc or even a handheld video game (!!!!!) but you were going to get a sheet of trading cards. Don't even lie that you won a video game back in the day because you won a sheet of trading cards. Which you immediately separated and lost one of the cards before you were even out of the restaurant and the remaining two were played with until they were creased and dog-eared and you eventually lost one of those two when that asshole you traded cards with in 3rd grade stoled one of them and now if you are extremely fortunate or a hoarder you still have that last lonely beat up card of a Sand Person that no one cares about left to remind you of a fast food meal you ate over 30 years ago. I didn't have any of the cards until I bought this set for about the price of a Whopper meal and a shake recently. When I looked online for info (which there seems to be little of, surprisingly) I did kinda recognize the scratch off card and I immediately regretted not hoarding that little scratch off gold mine because those things have to be hella scarce nowadays.

At any rate I got the entire 36-card set in 12 different panels now, with 6 panels for Star Wars and 6 panels for Empire. No panels for Jedi because too early and Ewoks suck. The fronts remind me of another set that I can't quite place and the backs are all the same, just advertising Burger King, Coca Cola and reminding you if you don't get 'em all by 7/30/81, you're screwed. My set looks like it has been in a flood although that might be just how they looked like when you got 'em. I've orientated the scans according to whether there were more horizontal or vertical cards on the panel. If you really have to see the Han Solo card face up, download the thing and rotate it. Enjoy the set while I try to figure out where I can find 4 three-card sheets to put this into.



These things appear to be all over the internets if you want to spend the cash.

Thursday, May 23, 2013

2012 Panini Prizm Review


+


+


+

NINE MONTHS

=




(Yes, this is a positive review. If it was not a positive review I would have used this as the third picture)

2011 Topps Kimball Champions Wantlist

While a little flawed, this is still one of the best tobacco-style mini sets around. While I'm not close to finishing it, I'm not far either and these cards seem to pop up in 'under a buck' boxes with great frequency.



KC-13 Ty Cobb
KC-63 Juan Marichal
KC-72 Ernie Banks
KC-75 Bob Feller
KC-82 Mike Schmidt
KC-86 Whitey Ford
KC-93 Wade Boggs
KC-95 Lou Gehrig
KC-100 Babe Ruth
KC-135 Carl Crawford

Here's the checklist if you happen to need it...

135/150 90.0%

Thanks to: Carlson, mystery dude, Stale Gum, Jedi Jeff

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Yum

I skipped over the whole Voyager series so I have no idea who or what this is


Hey I like spinach... I like pears...


This... I uh... I ... um. eeeeeeccccchhhh

And yes, the scratch and sniff still kinda works.

No you don't wanna sniff it

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Thurman Inaction

Wednesday evening Thurman. And why not?


While this might be the least actiony In Action card I've ever seen it is still pretty cool. Because Thurman, obviously, but how often do you see a mound conference on a trading card? Not bloody often.


Not sure what Terry Harmon is doing on the back of a Thurman Munson card but apparently his chances record for a second sacker is still intact. Terry has his own card in 1972 Topps and it's just as actiony as Thurman's!

Monday, May 13, 2013

Joy of a (mostly) completed series: 2003 Topps Garbage Pail Kids

The original goal for my GPK collection was to only collect the original 15 series, but this set of 2003 "New" series (AKA series 16) fell into my lap so what the heck. It's not technically complete because I'm missing two name variants but it's close enough in my book. I've got a couple extra near sets if anyone wants 'em.


Gotta admit this is a hell of a first page for their comeback set. Lots of interesting ways of torturing the kids and I really admire Topps for turning their lamest card from the 1988 Dinosaur Attacks! set into a dang funny GPK card.



The bodily fluids start a-flowin and we get one of the creepier cards in the set with Victoria's Secret


The parody of the famous Japanese painting that I can't remember the name of right now floored me when I saw it.


Snot is my least favorite GPK trope and it's a flowin' freely on this page but Fartin' Martin makes up for it.


Not sure how Troy Destroy didn't become the new flagship character of the set. Harry Potty should have been the cover of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Thursday, May 9, 2013

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

2011 Topps Kimball Champions checklist

While trying to get my shizz organized and wantlisted I couldn't find this online in one easy to digest list so I ganked it from BaseballCardPedia and I'm putting it here. Let the C&D's begin.


KC-1 Ubaldo Jimenez
KC-2 Derek Jeter
KC-3 Carlos Santana
KC-4 Johan Santana
KC-5 Carlos Gonzalez
KC-6 Clay Buchholz
KC-7 Mickey Mantle
KC-8 Ryan Braun
KC-9 Chase Utley
KC-10 Ichiro
KC-11 Starlin Castro
KC-12 Torii Hunter
KC-13 Ty Cobb
KC-14 Clayton Kershaw
KC-15 David Price
KC-16 Aroldis Chapman
KC-17 Chris Carpenter
KC-18 Andrew McCutchen
KC-19 Brandon Morrow
KC-20 Roy Halladay
KC-21 Shin-Soo Choo
KC-22 Victor Martinez
KC-23 Mat Latos
KC-24 Josh Johnson
KC-25 Vladimir Guererro
KC-26 Justin Morneau
KC-27 Nick Markakis
KC-28 Mike Stanton
KC-29 Jered Weaver
KC-30 David Wright
KC-31 Nelson Cruz
KC-32 Alex Rios
KC-33 Martin Prado
KC-34 Joey Votto
KC-35 Jon Lester
KC-36 Hanley Ramirez
KC-37 Stephen Strasburg
KC-38 Roy Oswalt
KC-39 CC Sabathia
KC-40 Albert Pujols
KC-41 Pablo Sandoval
KC-42 Mariano Rivera
KC-43 Pee Wee Reese
KC-44 Hunter Pence
KC-45 David Ortiz
KC-46 Mel Ott
KC-47 Brett Anderson
KC-48 Justin Upton
KC-49 Jose Bautista
KC-50 Miguel Cabrera
KC-51 Hank Aaron
KC-52 Sandy Koufax
KC-53 Carlton Fisk
KC-54 Nolan Ryan
KC-55 Stan Musial
KC-56 Steve Carlton
KC-57 Tom Seaver
KC-58 Mel Ott
KC-59 Tony Gwynn
KC-60 Johnny Bench
KC-61 Greg Maddux
KC-62 Luis Aparicio
KC-63 Juan Marichal
KC-64 Jackie Robinson
KC-65 Bob Gibson
KC-66 Yogi Berra
KC-67 Pee-Wee Reese
KC-68 Reggie Jackson
KC-69 Robin Roberts
KC-70 Roy Campanella
KC-71 Brooks Robinson
KC-72 Ernie Banks
KC-73 Phil Rizzuto
KC-74 Eddie Murray
KC-75 Bob Feller
KC-76 Lou Brock
KC-77 Frank Robinson
KC-78 Eddie Mathews
KC-79 Barry Larkin
KC-80 Roger Maris
KC-81 Craig Biggio
KC-82 Mike Schmidt
KC-83 Don Mattingly
KC-84 Ryne Sandberg
KC-85 Willie McCovey
KC-86 Whitey Ford
KC-87 Andre Dawson
KC-88 Jim Palmer
KC-89 Duke Snider
KC-90 Hank Greenberg
KC-91 Dale Murphy
KC-92 Frank Thomas
KC-93 Wade Boggs
KC-94 Carl Yastrzemski
KC-95 Lou Gehrig
KC-96 Cal Ripken
KC-97 Paul Molitor
KC-98 Gary Carter
KC-99 Ty Cobb
KC-100 Babe Ruth
KC-101 Babe Ruth
KC-102 Willie McCovey
KC-103 Zach Britton
KC-104 Jimmie Foxx
KC-105 Honus Wagner
KC-106 Gary Carter
KC-107 Dan Uggla
KC-108 Lance Berkman
KC-109 Trevor Cahill
KC-110 Hank Aaron
KC-111 Tris Speaker
KC-112 Cole Hamels
KC-113 Alex Rodriguez
KC-114 Felix Hernandez
KC-115 Ty Cobb
KC-116 Johnny Mize
KC-117 Curtis Granderson
KC-118 Cliff Lee
KC-119 Matt Holliday
KC-120 Frank Robinson
KC-121 Luis Aparicio
KC-122 Christy Mathewson
KC-123 Bert Blyleven
KC-124 Frank Thomas
KC-125 Nolan Ryan
KC-126 Danny Duffy
KC-127 Justin Verlander
KC-128 Carlton Fisk
KC-129 George Sisler
KC-130 Adrian Gonzalez
KC-131 Adam Dunn
KC-132 Tom Seaver
KC-133 Ozzie Smith
KC-134 Miguel Cabrera
KC-135 Carl Crawford
KC-136 Paul Molitor
KC-137 Joe Morgan
KC-138 Rogers Hornsby
KC-139 James Shields
KC-140 Michael Pineda
KC-141 Andre Dawson
KC-142 Ryan Howard
KC-143 Kyle Drabek
KC-144 Reggie Jackson
KC-145 Eric Hosmer
KC-146 Vladimir Guerrero
KC-147 Mark Teixeira
KC-148 Jose Reyes
KC-149 Cy Young
KC-150 Joe DiMaggio

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

BoMo MoJo

Bowman goes live tomorrow which means people are going to be posting blaster rips pretty much all day today. So get excited! Go out and buy a case right now! There's lotsa Big Hits out there to pull! BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY!

Just so you know the type of quality hitz Bowman has to offer, here's a collection of Mojo I pulled from some 2004 Bowman boxes back in the day.


Here's a box topper. It's a white bordered card numbered to 245 encased in a special holder held together with a Topps Uncirculated hologram sticker that has never stayed stuck to the holder for even a second since I first got it. Casey Kopitzke never played in the majors and was out of baseball after 2006. I only have the one box topper because the other boxes I bought was already opened.



Here's a game used exhibition game relic from the Futures game. At least I assume it was worn in that game. Edwin played for the Dodgers at the time and I don't recall any red alternate Dodger unis. Edwin has had an effective career as a starting pitcher for a bunch of different teams. He couldn't get a contract  last offseason though and now he pitches for the Cubs so not so effective anymore.


Here is a game used high school jersey. No I'm not kidding. Chris Lubanski never played in the majors and was out of baseball after 2011.


Ok, here's some super serious Mojo. Ervin Santana on card autograph! Ervin's not an ace or anything but he's been solid with more ERAs in the 3's than in the 5's and is even pitching well for the Royals right now. Good luck finding this card for less than $10!


 Another exhibition game jersey assuming it's not not part of the bunting hung up at the All Star game. (have they done bunting relic cards yet?) Neal pitched seven years for Chicago. Both of 'em actually. Not seven years each, but total between the two teams. You know what I mean.


Merkin auto Mojo! This one's actually kinda cool to me because Valdez was an amateur free agent signing by the Braves and was traded to the Giants in the Russ Ortiz deal. Also, Merkin. LOL


Another High School jersey relic. Yay. There's a picture of the jersey on the back of the card and both of these are All-American jerseys of some kind. Jonathan Fulton never played in the majors and was out of baseball after 2011.


Ok, this one is legitimately cool. Ichiro and Pujols they ain't, but Dontrelle still has a decent hobby following. I don't remember the insertion ratio but it was in the thousands if I recall correctly.

Got all those boxes or near boxes for 'bout $20 a throw in '04. I wonder why so cheap?

Monday, May 6, 2013

Welcome Back Mac


 words not necessary






Saturday, May 4, 2013

May the Free Comic Book be with you

The fascists at the calendar company rudely scheduled Star Wars Day and Free Comic Book Day on the same bloody day so I couldn't figure out what to do for today's post. I decided to pull a Reese's Cup and combine the two all on 2 1/2" x 3 1/2" format so it's topical for the blog. Here's a few cards from the 1993-1994 Topps Star Wars Galaxy set featuring some comic book and otherwise artists.

Ralph McQuarrie


If you like Star Wars and don't know who Ralph McQuarrie is, you need to get Googlin', son.

Boris Vallejo


In the days before ubiquitous internet pr0nz, nerds had Boris Vallejo calendars.

Jim Steranko


Marvel superstar known best for Nick Fury.

Mark Chiarello


Illustrated this fabulous book which is responsible for my mild obsession with watercolor painting even though I'm terrible at it.

Sam Kieth


Drew for Sandman and created The Maxx. 'Nuff said.

Moebius


Legend. Waaaaaaay more than just Heavy Metal.

Al Williamson


You want Star Wars comics, eh? Al drew Star Wars comics. He even drew the Star Wars daily comic strip!

John Byrne


John Byrne has worked on pretty much every comic everywhere.

Jack Kirby


The best.

For extra added fun today be sure to check out Mr. Plinkett's reviews of the Star Wars Prequels. Not safe for work, life or humanity but damn they're funny.

Also, here's my Free Comic Book for the day if you're interested.